I didn't mean that it is better (or more usable for that matter) to have 4 conductor shielded cable, I just wanted to say what to expect. You can, however, use two or more of the conductors for the pots in the same signal path, like on a volume/gain pot - one pin is ground, and the other two can be soldered to different wires inside the cable. It just saves some space and results in a cleaner looking build, but the downside is that there is a lot of tension on the individual cores (if the plastic insulation is too thick), which might result in breaking wires.
Your cable wiring is correct, the shield is ground and the centre is the signal. You must watch for ground loops here, make sure that there aren't multiple connections to different grounds from any single point.
A choke is an inductor, a coil of wire wrapped around a magnetic material (ferrite, in this case). If the switching noise is really the problem, then try googling LC low pass filter. Because you dont know the coils inductance, it might be a hit or miss, but taking that toroidal psu coil and soldering some leads together, so it has all the wraps around the core in series and in the same direction, and then placing it in front of your amps power supply (so that it is followed by paralleled 1000uF and 100nF caps) might help a bit.
Keep the input of the power supply short and away from the preamp, as the switching from the external unit might be creating some quite strong EMI.
EDIT: The -3dB cutoff frequency of an LC filter is given as
f=1/(2*pi*sqrt(L*C))
So if the switching frequency is the same as the LC cutoff frequency, the power supply ripple will be 3dB smaller. Now, electrolytics have higher ESR and ESR, so for effective high frequency decoupling you want ceramics. A lot of them in parallel. Measure the coils inductance if you can, and then try to make the cutoff frequency a couple of times lower than the switching frequency.
Your cable wiring is correct, the shield is ground and the centre is the signal. You must watch for ground loops here, make sure that there aren't multiple connections to different grounds from any single point.
A choke is an inductor, a coil of wire wrapped around a magnetic material (ferrite, in this case). If the switching noise is really the problem, then try googling LC low pass filter. Because you dont know the coils inductance, it might be a hit or miss, but taking that toroidal psu coil and soldering some leads together, so it has all the wraps around the core in series and in the same direction, and then placing it in front of your amps power supply (so that it is followed by paralleled 1000uF and 100nF caps) might help a bit.
Keep the input of the power supply short and away from the preamp, as the switching from the external unit might be creating some quite strong EMI.
EDIT: The -3dB cutoff frequency of an LC filter is given as
f=1/(2*pi*sqrt(L*C))
So if the switching frequency is the same as the LC cutoff frequency, the power supply ripple will be 3dB smaller. Now, electrolytics have higher ESR and ESR, so for effective high frequency decoupling you want ceramics. A lot of them in parallel. Measure the coils inductance if you can, and then try to make the cutoff frequency a couple of times lower than the switching frequency.